#i think setting my goal too high was my problem with the jlpt too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

poetic-emjay · 2 years

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October 1, 2022

It's been over a year since I last used this account, not that I used it much before then anyway.

But I'm about to get started on a 2 year plan that starts today - so I'm going to use this account to document my progress (mainly to keep myself accountable and to pretend I have someone to talk to).

One of the main goals is to not talk to or see my ex for at the very least the next two years. She's very toxic and I can't improve my life if I'm around someone like her. She's blocked everywhere and I have no plans of going clubbing for the foreseeable future, so that shouldn't be a problem. Trying not to think about her is another issue altogether though...

Anyway, other than that there are some things I want to try to accomplish despite the fact that I want to kill myself. Hopefully they'll be enough of a distraction from my shitty life.

I'm back in school, working towards a degree in a field I don't really have an interest in - but it's the easiest degree for me to get: social media marketing. My hope is just by having a degree in anything will help me get a job in the field I actually want to be in - programming. It'll also help with my backup plan, which is to move to Japan on the JET programme if life here continues to suck.

Speaking of Japan, I've been inconsistently studying Japanese for years now and still know nothing. I'm going to set a really high goal - not sure if it'll be possible with my limited time and lack of funds, but we'll see. My goal is to pass the JLPT N4 exam next year (skipping N%), and then the N3 exam the year after. One of the things I plan on doing today is resetting my WaniKani progress... I thought about it for a while and I think it's the best thing to do.

Exercising most if not every day is another goal. Not sure if I should spend the money on a gym yet, but realistically I probably should. Will let you know. Also eating way better and getting my blood sugar under control.

Since I'm no longer going out to events and have no friends, combined with fact I want to at least give school proper effort - I'm going to live stream myself studying on Twitch every Saturday. Might start today - I just need tog et everything setup. Hopefully donations will come in from that - cause I'm hella broke in a hella expensive city.

There are so many other things too. I want to learn my coding languages, I want to clean up my place and keep it clean, and I want to start making videos for youtube and tiktok.

Today is day one, Saturday October 1st, 2022. Join me on this journey to self improvement, and let's change our lives around together.

#Day 1

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nihononthego · 4 years

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I dreamed I was late for the JLPT N2 exam. I was so late, I actually went to the classroom to check in. I flipped through my wallet and saw all my JLPT cards from previous years, so I was panicking a bit because I couldn’t find the one for this year. When I finally found it, I showed it and my ID to the proctor and sat down. I noticed that people around me were finishing the first section early and just starting to chat. I opened my booklet, just to be told that the time was up for the first section of the exam. That was pretty disheartening, but that dream tells me that (1) I’m fearful, and (2) I’m not taking my preparation time seriously.

Lately, I have been thinking about when would be the best time to take the exam--either this year or next. I’m just thinking ahead this year, since there has been too much going on since 2018. As I’ve been putting together my schedule, I’ve just come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t be lazy or neglectful about my studies.

What do you do when you love a language, but your schedule is really packed? What do you do when you love a language, and you’re too lazy to actually do anything productive with it? What do you do when you love a language, you have a test to study for, and your schedule is packed and you’re lazy?

Make a decision that you want to study, and be committed to it. Studying a language first begins with your mindset. Don’t just dream about becoming fluent; envision yourself actually studying and working toward that goal. A study by Pham and Taylor (1999) showed that students who visualized themselves studying performed better than those who visualized themselves achieving a high score on an exam. The students who visualized themselves studying for the exam increased the number of hours they actually spent studying, reduced anxiety, and increased problem-solving activities (Pham & Taylor, 1999).

Be realistic about what and how you want to study. The SMART goals are a good start for being realistic with yourself. SMART goals are ones that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, and Time-bound. So saying you want to study Japanese is not very specific--what in Japanese do you want to study? If you say you want to be fluent in Japanese in three months, and you’re starting from ground zero, that may not be realistic or achievable for you. With goals like these, it would be no surprise if you found yourself losing interest. Therefore, having some realistic and concrete goals in place may help motivate you to study. When you set clear goals for your self, then you will not be shooting in the dark with language-learning, and the progress you see will encourage you. Brown (n.d.) has a great article on creating a language-learning plan for yourself.

Create a schedule for yourself. Creating a schedule looks different for each person. Some people will create blocks of time in their week that they devote to studying, others study whenever it’s convenient, some study whenever they feel like studying, and others panic that they have no time when they just devoted five hours to playing video games and bingeing Netflix. If there is one thing that I learned from winning National Novel Writing Month, it is that you have time. In Chris Baty’s book No Plot? No Problem!, he suggests writing out your whole schedule for the week and marking all the blocks of time where you are doing something: working, sleeping, eating, gaming, etc. Whatever openings are available that is the time you use. You might also tailor this by finding your most productive hours of the day. I used to like studying at night, but I realize that I also like writing and watching TV at night. It has been happening so consistently that I have begun to realize that this is not the best time to study for me. I am now considering pushing my study time to an empty block in the morning/afternoon.

It’s okay to take time off, but don’t stay there! Everyone has moments of laziness, and it’s okay to take some days off, but set some boundaries for yourself. Don’t use laziness as an excuse to stay lazy. Don’t fall into a subconscious pattern of thinking: “Well, I’ve been lazy for about a week, so I might as well just keep being lazy. Since I’ve gone this far in laziness, I might as well see it through to the end.” It would probably be better to say, I’m just going to take a week off and start studying the next week. Then, hold yourself to it!

Be accountable and committed to your process and your plan. Know that language-learning is a journey that requires your patience and perseverance. You are responsible for your own journey, and no one else. If possible, find a person who can keep you accountable to your language studies; this could be a family member, a friend, a native speaker, or even a person who is not even learning your target language. Have someone check in on you, who can keep you motivated and encouraged.

I hope you found these tips helpful and that you can use them to some degree in your language studies. Happy studying!

References

Baty, C. (2004). No plot? No problem! A low stress high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days. Chronicle Books.

Brown, R. (n.d.). SMART goal setting for language learning. https://www.linguasorb.com/blog/smart-language-goals

Pham, L. B., & Taylor, S. E. (1999). From thought to action: Effects of process- versus outcome-based mental simulations on performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(2), 250–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167299025002010

#langblr #studying #language #dream

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ra7v-self-learning-nihongo · 5 years

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日本語: Why did I quit and why am I restarting?

At the age of 13, inspired by the great work of Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball, I became obsessed with everything Japanese, the language, the culture, the anime, the arts, the music, the dramas, the movies, the country, the people......

I taught myself to read and write Hiragana & Katakana back in high school.

I always dreamed of wanting to learn the language properly, in a class room environment, with a proper teacher.

In 2015, at age 32, I happily started Japanese Language night classes, being able to afford it after 10 years of holding a stable job.

2 years later, right before the 6th level exam, I quit.

The official reason: lack of time to study, busy work schedule, business travels.

The actual reason: I didn’t want to fail in the exam.

I aced every level’s exam, even did JLPT N5 (the easiest one) and passed it with flying colours.

But the 6th level lessons were suddenly super-hard, way too many vocabulary to memorize, and the grammar rules were brutal.

So I quit the class, fearing failure.

Unfortunately, I stopped learning Japanese too.

Recently, I was listening to my favourite podcast (Abroad in Japan), Chris and Pete were discussing on how to learn the Japanese language and memorise Kanji.

So I started thinking, why did I quit learning Japanese when I was so passionate about it before?

I had so much fun at the beginning. Where did it all go wrong?

I believe that the problem was not because of my inability to learn, but more due to the way I was learning the language.

The study material (which were mostly from Minna no Nihongo textbooks) was bogging me down with endless details and grammar rules.

I was literally getting turned off by the clinical sterility of the lessons.

It was boring as hell.

We were taught what the rules are, but never the why behind the rules.

The kind teachers in my school, who were all native Japanese speakers, had difficulty explaining concepts in English.

So when the grammar lessons got a bit more complicated, I was learning them for the sake of only passing the exams, instead of understanding and appreciating them.

Exams are the worst, though sometimes necessary, they almost always spoil the joy of learning.

Also, it was becoming a tedious routine, week after week, attend classes, do homework, memorize vocabulary and sentences.

I started learning the language NOT to earn a certificate, but to understand the language, to be able to carry a conversation in the language, and to watch J-dorama/anime without the subtitles.

It was supposed to be a casual & fun thing, instead it became serious & boring chore.

So me quitting the Japanese classes was the right thing to do, but me quitting learning Japanese entirely was not right at all.

Now, 2 years later, I am restarting this journey, this time back to the self-learning method.

Thanks to Chris’s suggestion on his podcast, I will start learning the Kanji using the Heisig method (more explained below), and use the “Human Japanese” apps.

I will set some time every day to self-learn, and also set some loose goals to keep me motivated.

Hopefully, I will be able to maintain this enthusiasm and successfully restart my Japanese language self-learning journey.

I will document some of my learning experiences here, more for record than for sharing.

However, I would appreciate any help, feedback, suggestions, to help me learn Japanese.

On the Heisig method:

I always knew that my Chinese classmates had an advantage over me in learning Kanji

They already knew how to write the Kanji and what the meaning, they just had to learn the Japanese pronunciation.

The Heisig method emulates this, except instead of Mandarin I will learn the Kanji in English.

#abroadinjapan #chrisabroad #petedonaldson #japaneselanguage #nihongo #日本語 #selflearning #motivation #podcast

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